Reid-Brownlee tiff looms

ARIZONA Reid of San Miguel Beer leads the new batch of imports out to challenge reigning Best Import awardee Justin Brownlee in the Philippine Basketball Association Governor’s Cup. CONTRIBUTED PHOTO

Arizona Reid of San Miguel Beer will be back for another tour of duty to challenge reigning Best Import Justin Brownlee of Ginebra in the Philippine Basketball Association Governor’s Cup starting 17 Aug. at the Smart Araneta Coliseum.

It’s going to be Reid’s fifth time to play in the country after suiting up for Rain or Shine in 2011.

But he is expected to get his hands full when he battles Brownlee, who is said to be the gold standard among guest players.

Allen Durham, who beat Brownlee for the Governor’s Cup Best Import award twice, will be back to power Meralco while a familiar face in Romeo Travis will be suiting up for Magnolia.

Other returnees are J’Nathan Bullock of Rain or Shine, Henry Walker of Blackwater, Eugene Phelps of Phoenix and Mike Glover of Talk ‘N Text while greenhorns Olu Ashaolu of NLEX, Akeem Wright of Columbian Dyip and Rashad Woods of Globalport will make their much-anticipated debuts.

Alaska is the lone team who has yet to name its reinforcement.

Still, all eyes will be on Brownlee, who just led Ginebra to a masterful conquest of San Miguel in the best-of-seven finals showdown of the Commissioner’s Cup.

He said he knows that other imports are out to knock him down, so he has to live up to his status as “Magic Brownlee” to help the Kings retain their crown.

“If there’s a target on my back, then that is what it is, that’s something I’m not going to worry about,” Brownlee said after the Kings lifted the Commissioner’s Cup title for the first time in 21 years.

“I’m just focused on getting better every day and just trying to help the team win.”

As testament to his resilience and fighting spirit, the 6-foot-5 Brownlee emerged as the shortest import to win the Best Import honor in the Commissioner’s Cup, a tourney that has a maximum height limit of 6-foot-9.

The other “short” import to win it was 6-foot-5 Kenny Redfield who did the trick in 1994 with Purefoods and in 1996 with Shell.

Brownlee capped off his amazing conference run with an impressive average of 31.5 points on 69 percent shooting clip on top of 10.5 rebounds and 5.8 assists against the 6-foot-8 Renaldo Balkman in six Finals games.

With that, Ginebra head coach Tim Cone believes Brownlee has just raised the standards for the upcoming reinforcements in the Governors’ Cup.

“He’s the measuring stick of all the other imports at this point,” said Cone.

It also means that all guest players will go after his prized import.

It, however, doesn’t worry Cone as Brownlee has proven himself in the PBA time and again as the most celebrated reinforcement in this era.

“He’s going have a huge target on his chest going into the 6-foot-5 conference. Every import’s going to be out there to prove himself against Justin,” said Cone, referring to the veteran Reid.

“But he has proven himself with two championships in the Governors’ Cup already.”